eMaint Helps Varela Win More Wastewater Management Clients

Varela Associates has helped smaller municipalities fund and implement more than 120 water and wastewater-system projects for over 25 years. Implementing eMaint was swift, with a budget of 100 hours to enter all of one client’s 126 assets into the system, the job was done in 23. In addition, Varela clients saw immediate benefits of eMaint, as they transitioned from a “notebook with a bunch of scribbled info” to organized work orders and on-demand reports.

BACKGROUND

For 25+ years, Varela Associates has helped smaller municipalities fund and implement more than 120 water and wastewater-system projects.

THE CHALLENGE

As the company grew and the economic climate changed, it became apparent that Varela’s clients needed a better system for managing and documenting their system’s maintenance of projects as well as the existing infrastructure: water pumping and distribution, wastewater collection and treatment, transportation vehicles, parks and building systems. The improved maintenance system not only provided improved documentation of the ongoing maintenance activities, but also became the municipalities’ infrastructure tool for budgeting time and resources. Management recognized that this growing market need was an opportunity for an entirely new line of business.

IMPLEMENTATION

Hugh Theiler, Engineering Technician and Waste Water Operator for Varela, has a 20-year track record in large-scale enterprise asset management, including 10 years in military aviation. He knew that to capitalize on the business opportunity, Varela needed a flexible, cost-effective CMMS it could deploy on behalf of its clients.

The criteria: The system needed to be efficient at setting up preventive maintenance plans, generating work orders and alerting staff to required certification renewals, thus paving the way for on-site staff to perform the actual work. In addition, it needed to be able to track the lifecycle cost of assets, while requiring limited staff time at minimal cost. A tall order? In 2013, Hugh found eMaint and became an eMaint customer.

Hugh recalls that in addition to the basic requirements Varela defined, eMaint offered another selling point: the ability to “clone” assets. Since Varela’s clients have multiple pieces of the same equipment, such as water pumps, this feature saved substantial time during data upload. For each asset, a PM schedule was created that allowed documents such as warranties to be scanned and imported using a simple “copy-paste” function. Reports now can be generated at the push of a button.

BENEFITS

Of the 100 hours budgeted for implementation, only 23 were required to enter all of one client's 126 assets into the system and set up a PM schedule.

Clients saw immediate benefits as they transitioned from a "notebook with a bunch of scribbled info" to organized work orders and on-demand reports.

As Varela wins more contracts based on positive reviews, it can offer eMaint CMMS to multiple clients at minimal incremental cost.

“Once we selected eMaint as our CMMS provider, implementation was fast. I called on a Thursday and by Friday I could access the system. At eMaint's price, the range of features it offers is unbeatable!”